on bbc news. the latest from new york and around the world. business business today. live from new york york at the opening bell. this is is business today. us stocks rise rise in early trading despite brent brent crude hitting a four year high. high. elsewhere, latest official official figures show the us economy economy grew by 2% in the first quarter, quarter, but investors remain cautious cautious due to the ongoing war with with iran. and the bank of england england holds firm and keeps interest interest rates unchanged despite despite rising prices, causing a a financial headache for the central central bank. welcome to business business today live from new york. york. i'm samira hussain. let's start

start on wall street where us stocks stocks are up early this morning morning as investors react to a whole whole load of financial data. first, first, oil prices have been extremely extremely volatile over the past past 24 hours. a few hours ago, brent brent crude rose to $126 a barrel barrel before falling back to around around $114. and then we have an an estimate on the us gdp for the the first quarter, which showed the the economy grew by 2% between january january and march. and investors investors are also still digesting digesting the largely upbeat earnings earnings report from a number of of business big tech firms. rather, rather, yesterday evening. well, well, let's parse all of this through through with joy yang global head head of index product management management at market vector indexes. indexes. i want to talk about the the gdp and inflation numbers that that have just come out about an an hour ago. what's your take? yeah. yeah. so again these numbers are

are confusing right? it almost feels feels like we're battling two economies economies the old economy and the the new ai economy. and you know know these are the same things that that the fed and central banks are are trying to weigh in is, you know, know, is economic growth or inflation inflation dominating. and i think think we're seeing, especially from from the earnings announcements that that we're seeing this week and upcoming, upcoming, that the economy is strong strong and that the ai economy is is winning. people are investing investing in it. we're seeing, you you know, like capex government really really investing back into the infrastructure. infrastructure. and i think a good good example of this is emerging emerging markets. you know, oil at at 100 120 should really be painful. painful. and these companies, these these countries that are sensitive sensitive to oil should be suffering. suffering. yet we're seeing emerging emerging markets at all-time high high because, you know, companies companies like tsmc, sk, sk and samsung samsung electronics are really kind kind of rising in to all-time high

high and carrying carrying some of of the markets with them. now, you you made a brief mention of the fed, fed, the federal reserve. there was was no surprise yesterday when there there was a no changes to the interest interest rates, but there was a lot lot of divide when it comes to what what comes next. yeah. so i think think we're going to we're going going to get a new chair. we're seeing seeing a lot of dissension now among among the members. but i think, you you know, again the fed is dealing dealing with the same issue trying trying to grapple inflation with with the economy and trying to understand understand what the numbers really really mean. and again, the gdp numbers numbers are backwards looking and and what we want to try to understand understand is what's coming with with the ai build out. kevin warsh warsh you know, a trump appointment appointment but has gone on publicly publicly to say he's not you know, know, he's not going to make any any commitments about lowering interest interest rates. right. you know what?

what? we're just going to have a a lot to watch and see when it comes comes to the fed going forward. joy joy yang thanks so much for your your time. thank you. now let's go go back to oil now where the price price of brent crude has been on on a roller coaster today. the global global benchmark brent crude topped topped $126 earlier, its highest highest since 2022. why? well comments comments from president trump to to top oil bosses at the white house house as they tried to find ways ways to limit the economic fallout fallout from the conflict. it's since since fallen back to $114 a barrel. barrel. so where are they heading heading next? pardon me. for more more now i'm joined by nitesh shah shah head of commodities and macroeconomic macroeconomic research at wisdomtree. wisdomtree. you've just got to make make this all make sense for us. us. the stalemate continues between between iran and the united states. states. but now the price of oil oil is falling. what gives.

yeah, i think there's a bit of a push and pull early this morning. morning. it's the news of a new campaign campaign which indicates a prolonged prolonged conflict. but later on on prices fell because of the impact impact on growth. we start to get get numbers in from the european european euro area in terms of gdp. gdp. and it's already taking a hit. hit. you know gdp numbers are coming coming in softer than expected. and and so people are worried that there there could be more growth weakness weakness and recessionary risks and and possibly pulling down demand demand for energy. oil included. included. nitesh shah. so sorry. sorry. we're going to have to leave leave it there short and sweet, but but we'll definitely be talking about about this some more. now i want want to cross the pond and focus focus on the uk now where the bank bank of england has kept its main main interest rate unchanged today. today. now the cost of borrowing borrowing remains at 3.75%. but the the uk's central bank has pointed pointed towards the likelihood of of higher inflation and interest

interest rate rises later this year. year. meanwhile, the eurozone. well, well, we've hit the latest inflation inflation numbers where prices have have climbed to 3% in april. the the european central bank has also also kept its main interest rate rate on hold. now joining me now now is jackie bowie, senior managing managing director at chatham financial. financial. the bank of england hasn't hasn't cut its sorry it has cut its its growth forecast. sorry. is this this more bad news for the economy? economy? yeah, well the press conference conference was really interesting interesting after they made their their announcement to keep interest interest rates on hold at three. three. 75 they've outlined three three scenarios a, b, c and they're they're not hanging their hat on on any base case. so in under those those three scenarios that are very very different outlooks for inflation inflation growth and ultimately interest interest rates. and andrew bailey bailey was questioned very heavily heavily on where he was leaning in in terms of probabilities for those those different scenarios. but of of course he wouldn't be called. called. but the end result is that

that the outlook for uk interest interest rates really could be anything anything from stay on hold at 3.75 3.75 all the way up to potentially potentially 5.25, which was the peak peak in the last interest rate hiking hiking cycle in 2023. well, it's it's got to be a real hard thing thing to manage given the price of of oil is hitting europe really hard. hard. yeah for sure. and the press press conference was very clear about about those second round effects. effects. so we're already seeing seeing it at the fuel and we're already already seeing it in household utility utility bills. but the next round round of effects is when you'll start start to see that commodity price price increase actually hitting food food prices. and that's where the the real concern is that that's when when inflation will really start start to feed through into the economy, economy, potentially looking at inflation inflation back up around 6%. and and very briefly, what can economies economies in europe do to protect protect themselves? well, it's very very hard because when inflation inflation is rising, the key policy policy tool you have is monetary

monetary policy. so you would be be increasing interest rates to try try and curtail inflation. the challenges challenges both the eurozone and and the uk are in a very low growth growth situation. and in fact if if you increase interest rates in in that type of scenario, then the the chances are you completely choke choke off, choke off growth altogether. altogether. and ultimately that lowering lowering of growth will do your inflation inflation curtailment for you. and and if you look at both lagarde's lagarde's statement and andrew bailey, bailey, they were both very clear clear to try and focus on the right right time to be increasing interest interest rates. if that is the right right decision. jackie bowie, thank thank you so much as always for your your insights. and now just some some news. right now we're taking taking a look at shares of meta which which have now dropped some 10%. 10%. that's all that we have for for business news. stay with us here here on bbc news. coming up next next it's the security brief with with christian fraser and mikey k. k. thanks very much for your time.

competition in bold new ways. join join me, paul carter for explore explore tokyo olympics on bbc news. i was on air when the london seven over seven attacks happened. happened. that day was different different because of the sheer volume volume of information we were grappling grappling with in real time. we couldn't couldn't let the desperation for for news influence our reporting reporting or be overwhelmed by the the magnitude of what we were witnessing. witnessing. today, as we wade through through endless waves of misinformation, misinformation, it's vital that we

we don't just ask the questions. questions. we question the answers. answers. i'm matthew amroliwala on on verified live at bbc news. donald donald trump faces the defining decision decision of his presidency how to to end this war in iran with something something that looks like victory. victory. but how does he get there? there? is there one more big operation operation that might unlock this this negotiation, or are we heading heading for a dangerous stalemate? stalemate? the pentagon says it's it's putting together plans for a a short, sharp campaign, a smash smash and grab raid of iran's enriched enriched uranium could be one course course of action that is now being being planned. we will take you through through what that might look like. like. stay with us. this is the security security brief. mikey, a ceasefire ceasefire buys time. it doesn't buy buy peace. so one presumes that right right now, us military planners are are looking at every course of action. action. every scenario, to try and and force the iranians to the table.

table. what do you think they might might be looking at. from looking looking at aircraft tracking sites sites on open source intelligence? intelligence? that's incredibly active active at the moment, and it's tracking tracking a lot of us military transport transport capability that is going going to and from bases in the uk.. uk.. now, axios, they're also reporting reporting from sources inside centcom centcom that they're working up a, a, quote, short and powerful option option package involving a wave of of strikes on iran. now, these courses courses of action could involve potentially potentially softening up kharg island. island. we've spoken about that. that. that's where 90% of the crude crude oil comes out of potentially potentially targeting any ports that that are being used to circumnavigate circumnavigate the us blockade. that that would likely be the tlam tomahawk tomahawk land attack missile. that's that's the cruise missile that's that's launched from submarines and and destroyers. and then the us a-10 a-10 warthog that that aircraft that's that's got the wings on that massive massive gatling gun with the big big engines on it. it's basically basically like. a big thing. yeah, yeah, basically like a tank in the the sky. and i think we could see see activity with that aircraft, aircraft, which we have seen already.

already. but increased activity over over the hormuz strait targeting targeting irgc capability from fast fast attack craft mine laying vessels, vessels, drone launch sites as well well as strikes on the more conventional conventional capability like ballistic ballistic missiles and anti-shipping anti-shipping missiles. ok. i mean, mean, the peace talks are deadlocked deadlocked on, on two fronts that that obviously the stranglehold on on the strait of hormuz. but also also running alongside that, iran's iran's nuclear ambitions. if iran iran refuses to give way on the nuclear nuclear question, which seems likely, likely, what are the options? yeah, yeah, there's a lot of options there, there, but they'll be prioritised, prioritised, right? so we know that that us special forces are in the the region. the 1/60 nightstalkers nightstalkers that we saw doing the the raid on maduro. that's the special special operations aviation regiment. regiment. we know that us navy seals seals are out there from open source source intelligence and likely joined joined by delta. although governments governments don't talk about the the locations as activity of special special forces. which part of the the country do you think they would

would be looking at most? well. we we know that most of the 440kg of of enriched uranium is at the isfahan isfahan nuclear centre, which was was part of the targeting set-up set-up for operation midnight hammer. hammer. and whilst not the same, same, the us has actually taken uranium uranium from another country before. before. what was. that operation? operation? it was called project project sapphire. let's just take take a look at a map. it was a covert covert operation carried out in 1994 1994 between the us and kazakhstan kazakhstan and the international international atomic energy agency, agency, the irea shortly after the the fall of the soviet union. the the operation was conducted in the the east of kazakhstan at the ulba ulba metallurgical plant in oskemen, oskemen, us removed 600kg of highly highly enriched uranium, likely uranium uranium 235. the isotope. and that's that's enough for around what was was estimated to be 20 nuclear bombs bombs and they were housed in poorly poorly secured warehouses and then then relocated to oak ridge national national laboratory in tennessee. tennessee. and just explain to us

us how that operation was conducted. conducted. so it was a civilian. civilian. military team. it landed landed at an airport around ten kilometres kilometres away from the warehouses, warehouses, and they travelled to to the plant before sunrise and left left after sunset to avoid public public notice. but it was under the the guise of a humanitarian mission. mission. i honestly have never heard heard of that operation. but it really really only goes so far when we're we're talking about iran because because the uranium enriched uranium uranium in iran quite obviously is is not stored in poorly equipped, equipped, poorly defended warehouses. warehouses. it's underground, it's it's heavily fortified. it's defended defended by a regime that knows the the americans are coming. so this this is quite different. yeah. project project sapphire, there are a lot lot of significant differences, but but project sapphire is, is what what we call a permissive environment. environment. so there's no immediate immediate threat, if you like, from from local or enemy forces or air air defence capability and any operator, operator, any operation potentially potentially targeting isfahan would would be absolutely under the planning planning assumption of